This is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of

the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

Copyright © 2020 by Lauren Myracle

Lyrics to “Rock With Us,” p. 184: Words and Music by Yung Pinch
Copyright © 2016 Yung Pinch
International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved.
Used by Permission.

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First edition 2020

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending

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 To the finest men I know:
my fathers, my sons, and my husband
“There is a monster at
the end of this book.”
— Grover
freshman
year
chapter
one

M
y friendship with Roby Smalls began in the
men’s room, the two of us pissing side by side
into our respective urinals. We were fourteen.
We’d seen the same movie at the Co-Ed Cinema, though
we hadn’t seen it together — by which I mean we hadn’t
bought our tickets together or sat together. Yes, our eye-
balls processed the images at the same time in the dark
theater, but it wasn’t until the movie ended and we both
went on our own to the restroom with its sticky floor and
flickering light and overflowing trash can that we, you
know, had our special moment.
 Not like that. I’m only about the ladies. Anyway,
homophobia is so last century.
Roby sniffled first. Then I sniffled. Piss against por-
celain, the buzzing of the fluorescent tube light, and the
two of us sniffling back and forth, struggling not to cry
because of how damn sad the movie had been.
It’s not important which movie it was. It could have
been any movie, any of a dozen movies that summer that
were devastating and real and happened to be way bet-
ter than I’d expected when Mom threw out the idea and
I said sure, because, as she pointed out, it was a good
way to escape North Carolina’s sweaty August heat. Plus,
popcorn.
It was A Star Is Born, all right?
After the third or so back-and-forth sniffle, I glanced
at Roby. I gave him a quick nod, which he returned. And
then we shook our dicks and washed our hands, and that
was that.
It was the most authentic man-to-man conversation
I’d ever had.
Two weeks later, high school started, and Roby turned
up in my freshman year seminar. I didn’t blurt out,
“Whoa, you’re the dude from the men’s room. We both
sniffled and tried not to cry, remember?”
He recognized me, though. I know because he gave
me the same nod in class that he’d given me in the rest-
room. He looked sheepish, but also like he owned it, that

2
moment we’d had. Like, Yeah, you caught me out, but I
caught you, too. Anyway — admit it — don’t you think it’s
kind of funny?
As Roby passed me on his way to his seat, it struck
me how short he was. At the movie theater, his height
hadn’t registered, I guess because of all the sniffling and
peeing. Also, I happen to be on the tall side. Pretty much
everyone looks short to me.
But that day in Ms. Summers’s classroom, I saw that
Roby was shorter than all the other guys and about half
the girls. Shorter than Ms. Summers. Shorter than my
mom, and she’s five four.
For girls, being short doesn’t matter. In some cases
it’s probably an advantage, since it’s cute when girls are
tiny. For a guy, being short sucks, especially if your last
name is “Smalls,” as in Roby Smalls. The world played a
trick on him in that regard.
Robyy is pronounced so that it rhymes with Toby, just
so you know. By the end of the period, everyone knew the
name of everyone else in the class, which is called WEB,
which stands for Where Everybody Belongs. We’re sup-
posed to talk about values and ethics and happiness and
stuff. It’s goofy. But Ms. Summers is young and pretty, so
it’s not so bad. Also it’s her first year of teaching, so she
lets us get away with more than she should.
This one guy, Stevie Hardman, takes advantage of this
by peppering our class discussions with words like shit

3
and damn. Every so often he drops an f-bomb, to remind
us that he’s a wild and crazy guy.
“Stevie, let’s keep this class a fuck-free zone,” said Ms.
Summers the first time he tested the waters.
Stevie grinned around the room and said, “Of course,
Ms. S. Whatever you say, Ms. S.”
Stevie’s best friend, Matt, slapped Stevie’s palm. Some
of the girls tittered and ducked their heads.
Roby looked at me and rolled his eyes.
Such a tool, he was saying.
Don’t I know it, I replied with a chin jerk, though
subtly enough that no one else caught my end of the
exchange.
Stevie iss a tool. But he’s a popular tool.
A month into the semester, Ms. Summers directed our
attention to a dozen self-help books shelved at the back
of the room. Using them as a resource, our assignment
was to come up with a strategy for “leading a rewarding
life,” which we would present to the rest of the class. A few
kids had already gone. Today was Stevie’s turn.
He propped a poster on the ledge of the smart board
and used a laser pointer to highlight the title of his proj-
ect, which was “Don’t Be a Crappy Crustacean!”
He’d been going for laughs. He got them from every-
one but Roby.
He told us that in the animal kingdom, male lobsters
fought other male lobsters for territory. When it became

4
clear which lobster was going to win, the losing lobster
could either surrender — and stay alive — or fight to the
bitter end, and die.
According to Stevie, death was preferable to defeat.
He swept his gaze across the room, graced us with a cocky
smile, and said, “Why, you ask?”
“No,” muttered Roby.
“Because after every fight, the lobsters’ brains are
chem-ically altered.” Stevie aimed his laser at a giant lob-
ster wearing a hand-drawn crown. “For the alpha lobster,
this is great. The alpha lobster’s brain is flooded with
seraphim.”
Ms. Summers cleared her throat. “I think you mean
serotonin.”
Stevie looked annoyed at having his rhythm
interrupted.
“Seraphim are the highest order of God’s angels,”
Ms. Summers explained.
“I don’t believe in angels,” said Stevie.
“That’s fine,” said Ms. Summers. “But I think you
mean serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter connected
with depression. People with low amounts of serotonin
tend to be depressed. People with high serotonin levels,
not so much.”
“Yeah, that,” said Stevie. “The winning lobster gets bet-
ter and stronger after a win. But the loser lobster”— Stevie
pointed the laser at a pathetically puny lobster with a giant

5
L on his chest —“the loser lobster’s brain literally melts.”
“Ew!” said some people.
A girl named Gertrude Leibowitz blanched. Then she
sat up straighter and lifted her chin. Gertrude terrified
me. She had heavy bangs and dark eyes. She was really
intense.
“That’s not true,” she said. “No way.”
“Way,” said Stevie. “The loser lobster gets depressed
and stays depressed, because of not getting the flood of
sero-whatever. It’s called the dominance cycle. The win-
ners stay winners, while the losers become bigger and
bigger losers.”
“Let’s hear how your research applies to us,” Ms.
Summers said. “What wisdom should we take away?”
“Um, be a winner?” Stevie said. He heh-heh-ed.
“Always succeed, and if you can’t succeed, die. It’s better
to die than to lose.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Gertrude said.
A soft-spoken girl named Natalia raised her hand.
She didn’t come across as timid, but reserved. Polite.
“Yes?” said Stevie.
“Are they all boy lobsters?” Natalia asked.
“Well, yeah,” Stevie said, as if it were obvious.
“How?”
“Huh?”
Natalia frowned. “Wouldn’t there have to be girl lob-
sters somewhere?”

6
 “Yeah, Stevie,” said other kids, catching on. “What
about the girl lobsters?”
Stevie patted the air. “You want to know about the girl
lobsters? I’ll tell you. The alpha lobster gets alll of them.
All the girl lobsters line up and say, ‘Pick me! Pick me!’
because they all want to mate with him.”
Stevie’s buddies guffawed. Roby cradled his head in
his hands.
Stevie strode to his desk, grabbed a book, and returned
to the front of the room. “And I quote,” he said. “ ‘On not-
ing the alpha male’s dominance, the female lobsters shed
their hard shells to become soft, vulnerable, and inviting.
They fill the air with fragrant mists and offer themselves
to the alpha.’ ”
Matt and some other guys hooted. They said things
like “Yeah” and “Ooo, baby, release those fragrant mists!”
Stevie snapped the book shut. “The alpha lobster gets
all the girls, and that is why being a winner at life means
being a winner, period.”
He bowed. Kids whistled and clapped. This set off
Ernie Korda, a special needs kid. He laughed and began
hitting his thigh with his fist.
Gertrude thrust her hand into the air. “So in your
fantasy world, you would get alll the girls?”
Stevie gave Gertrude a blatant up-and-down look. “Did
I say that? No. What I said is that all the girls wantt the
alpha male. How many he decides to claim is up to him.”

7
 “So girls are just objects to be collected?”
Stevie coughed into his first. “Not justt collected.”
“Ms. Summers!” Gertrude cried.
Stevie held up his hands. “Don’t blame me. Blame
biology.”
“Tone it down, Stevie,” Ms. Summers warned.
Roby lifted his head. “Actually, failure is more valu-
able than success,” he said.
“Dude,” Stevie said.
“Care to elaborate?” said Ms. Summers.
“We learn from failure. What do we learn from success?”
“How to keep succeeding,” said Stevie.
“And it’s a cop-out to say we’re governed by biology,”
Roby said. “Once upon a time, maybe. When we were
cavemen.”
“And cavewomen,” Gertrude interjected.
“Maybe lobsters behave according to lobster biology,
but aren’t humans smarter than that?” Roby shot Stevie a
glance that said, I am, anyway. As for you . . . ?
“Burn!” crowed Matt.
“I’m not talking about intelligence,” Stevie said. “I’m
talking about basic primal urges.”
Urges,” Matt echoed. He wagged his big woolly-
mammoth head.
“Shut up, Matt,” Stevie ordered. He turned back to
Roby. “Let’s say a girl, a pretty girl, walks up to you and
takes off all her —”

8
 “That’s enough,” Ms. Summers said sharply. At the
back of the room, Ernie had gotten pretty loud. Usually
he was accompanied to his classes by an aide, but today
the aide was absent.
Ms. Summers walked to his desk. “Ernie, can you
calm down? Or do you need to go to the resource room?”
Ernie was a sweet kid. He loved those white powdered
donuts that come in a bag, and he was always offering
them around and wanting to share. But now he laughed
and banged his thigh, over and over.
“Okay,” Ms. Summers said, urging Ernie to his feet.
She looked frazzled. “I’ll be back in two minutes,” she told
us. “But this discussion is over. Sadie, you’re up next. Be
ready.”
“Yep,” said Sadie. She waited until Ms. Summers left
the room, then pulled out her phone, stuck in earphones,
and closed her eyes.
The rest of us turned back to Stevie and Roby.
“So, Roby, as I was saying: pretend a pretty girl walks
up to you and takes off all her clothes,” Stevie said.
“Why does she have to be pretty?” Gertrude demanded.
“Fine, any girl,” Stevie said. “But if you’re a guy, if
you’re a red-blooded American male, and a naked girl
rs herself to you . . .”
offers
Stevie had to have known that all the boys in the
room were now envisioning this imaginary naked girl. It
felt wrong, especially since half the kids in the class were

9
real live girls, and beneath their clothes, they were naked
as well.
Why is a naked girl so much more vulnerable than a
naked guy? We guys were naked beneath our clothes, too,
but it didn’t mean the same thing.
“Drop it, Stevie,” Roby said.
“Listen, man, you can be as politically correct as you
want,” Stevie said. “But at the end of the day, you’ve got
this girl — pretty or not, I don’t give a shit — and she’s say-
ing, ‘Come and get it’ . . .” He rubbed the bridge of his
nose. “You’re telling me you wouldn’t be all over that?”
“I’m not telling you anything,” Roby said.
“So that’s a no?”
“Screw you.”
“Bro, you’re missing the point,” Stevie said. “I’m not
on the menu.”
It was so stupid. Stevie was so stupid. But kids laughed,
and Roby flushed and slid lower in his seat.
Stevie turned to Matt. “What about you, buddy?”
“Would I have sex with a naked chick?” Matt said.
“Um, duh.
“Torin?” Stevie said.
Torin stretched his legs and crossed one foot over the
other. “I mean, if the girl is willing . . .”
“She is.”
“I’m not going to turn her down. That would be rude.”
They slapped palms.

10
 “Paul,” Stevie said, “you’d say yes to free sex, right?”
Paul as in me.
“Paul, please,” said Gertrude.
“Ooo, d’you hear that?” Matt said. He adopted a fal-
setto. “‘Paul, please!’ She’s begging for it!”
Spots of color rose on Gertrude’s cheeks.
I wondered what was taking Ms. Summers so long.
Stevie gazed at me, eyebrows raised. Sweat dampened
my pits. Fear sweat. I try to come across as confident, but
the truth is I’m awkward and lonely and, more often than
not, I feel like a scared little kid.
“Paul?” Stevie pressed.
Saying nothing wasn’t good enough. Saying nothing
was like watching from a crowd as some guy got beat up
and not doing a thing to help him.
So, okay, I decided. I’d tell Stevie “no.”
And I would have. I swear. But Stevie was already saun-
tering back to his desk. He clapped me on the shoulder
and said, “Good man, Paul.”
“Yeah,” said Matt. “Get you some!”
“You’re a dick, Matt,” I said.
Stevie chuckled.
I really hate it, the way certain guys chuckle.

11
chapter
two

I
’ve only eaten lobster once. I’ve for sure never eaten it
in Brevard, the North Carolina mountain town where
I live with my mom.
I was born in Brevard. I’ve lived here all my life. But
Mom grew up in Atlanta, and my grandparents live
there still. They belong to a fancy country club, which is
where I tried lobster, which was delicious. It was covered
in crushed saltine crackers, all drenched in butter and
baked to golden perfection — the tackiest white people
appetizer ever, according to Mom.
I love my grandparents a lot. Granddad takes me to
Waffle House every time I visit, as well as Krispy Kreme,
where we pick up a dozen glazed originals to “bring back
to the ladies.” He has an app that lets him know when
the doughnuts are ready. It’s called Fresh Off the Grease.
Grandmom likes art, so she and I go to museums
and art shows. I’m hoping one day she’ll take me to New
York. New York has a Gucci store and Louis Vuitton and a
brick-and-mortar Off-White boutique. Going there would
be dope.
Grandmom and Granddad spoil me because they love
me, but also because I’m their only grandkid. I almost
had a sister, but she died before she was born.
Her name was Willow.
Anyway, one of Granddad’s favorite sayings is, “Walk
into a room like you own it, and everyone will assume
you do.”
That’s what I tried to do when I strode into the cafete-
ria on the day of Stevie’s lobster presentation, and I guess
it worked, because Stevie spotted me from his table and
waved me over.
Ah, shit, I thought. It wasn’t Stevie I wanted to impress.
I’d hoped I was done with him, or he with me.
I told myself to be cool. I crossed the room, brown
paper lunch sack in hand. Ernie Korda held out his fist
as I passed, and I gave him dap.
When I reached Stevie, I said, “ ’Sup?”
“Sit,” Stevie said.
I dropped into a chair and nodded at the others:

13
Stevie’s friend Matt and two girls, Lily and Sabrina. I
upended my lunch bag, emptying its contents before me.
“Takis. Excellent,” Stevie said. He snatched the green
foil bag, ripped it open, and shook some into his mouth.
“May I? Excellent.”
“You used excellentt twice in a row,” Lily pointed out.
“Not in a row,” Stevie said. “‘In the same sentence
family’ would be more accurate.”
“You should work on your adjectives,” Lily said. “Vari-
ety’s the spice of life.”
“Mmm. Spice. I like a girl who’s spicy.” He dipped
his hand into my bag of Takis, helping himself to more.
He licked his fingers and smeared Lily’s cheek with
Takis spit.
“Gross,” Lily said. She swiped at her cheek with her
napkin.
“I marked you. Now you’re mine,” Stevie said.
“No.”
“You have to be my sex slave and rub my feet.”
“No, and again, gross,” said Lily.
“Why your feet?” Sabrina asked Stevie. “Not that I’m
knocking foot rubs, but of all the body parts in the world
to make your sex slave rub . . .”
Lily shoved Sabrina. “Oh my god!”
“I’m just saying,” Sabrina said.
“Girls, girls,” Stevie said soothingly. “You can rub me
wherever you want. My body is your playground.”

14
 Lily and Sabrina looked at each other. They giggled,
and it was kind of like they were
e Stevie’s sex slaves, only
without any actual sex. Presumably without any actual sex.
Across the cafeteria, I spotted Roby eating his lunch
and reading a paperback. He seemed fine, and I felt an
irrational flare of annoyance. Here I was, feeling ashamed
of myself on multiple levels, and Roby was oblivious. Roby
was as happy as a clam!
Were clams and lobsters related? Did clams skulk
along the ocean floor angling for fights, each hoping to
be dubbed the mighty Clam King?
I imagined a clam stretching its rubbery body to its
full length and flinging itself forward against its shell.
Best-case scenario, the clam would drift through the
water, clink shells with its opponent, and sink lazily back
to the bottom of the sea.
“Yo, Paul,” Stevie said. “I was telling Lily and Sabrina
what happened in Ms. Summers’s class. How epic it was.”
“So epic,” Matt said, bobbing his oversize head. Seri-
ously, he has a really big head, and not because it’s
overflowing with brains. It’s just a really big head.
“And while Stevie’s story wasn’t terrible,” Lily said, “it
also wasn’t the most thrilling, because it wasn’t about me.”
“Dang, Lil,” Sabrina said, “you are remarkably self-
absorbed.”
“It’s a talent,” Lily said. She pretended to yawn, which
she pretended to hide with a ladylike pat of her mouth.

15
She dropped her hand and cocked her head. “So, Paul.
You tell us a story.”
“Does it have to be about you?” I said.
“Ha,” said Stevie.
“No, just entertain us,” Lily said.
Was it fair for pretty girls to demand that boys
entertain them? Lily and Sabrina were
e pretty, Lily in a
cheerleader-peppy-white-girl sort of way and Sabrina in
a black-eyeliner-Asian-vampire sort of way.
Sabrina smiled at me.
Lily propped her chin on the heel of her palm.
“Well . . . see that guy over there?” I said, indicating a
junior with broad linebacker shoulders.
“Thad Parker?” Lily said.
“He went to the same middle school as me,” I said.
“Not entertaining,” said Sabrina.
“I was a sixth-grader when he was an eighth-grader,
and at the beginning of the school year he cut in front of
me in the lunch line.”
“Oh dear,” said Lily.
“What’d you do?” Stevie asked.
“Me? I’d have beaten the crap out of him,” Matt said.
“Yep,” Stevie said. He drove his fist into his palm.
“Whammo.”
“Wow, Stevie, you are so tough and macho,” Lily said,
and I thought she was being sincere until I caught the
wink she threw at Sabrina.

16
 “I would have made a citizen’s arrest,” Sabrina said.
She jabbed her Twinkie at me. “Did you make a citizen’s
arrest, Paul?”
I felt, for a moment, as if I’d been lifted from my body
and was looking down at myself. I wondered why I was
here, and what I was saying, and if I was going to do or say
anything meaningful, ever.
“I pinched him,” I said.
Stevie barked a laugh. “You pinched Thad Parker?”
“As hard as I could.”
“And?” said Sabrina.
“He yelped. And then I yelped. And then he narrowed
his eyes and came closer, and I shrank back in terror.”
“You poor thing!” Sabrina said.
“But after that did he leave you alone?” Lily asked.
“He did, yeah.”
Stevie cleared his throat. He liked it better when he
was entertaining his sex slaves.
They weren’t his sex slaves.
Nobody was anybody’s sex slave.
“Yes, master?” Lily said sweetly.
“Is it time for us to rub your feet?” Sabrina said.
They giggled. Stevie looked perplexed, but launched
into a speech about how Thad was a decent guy, actually,
and how the two of them used to play on the same flag
football team.
As for Lily and Sabrina’s foot-rubbing offer, maybe

17
Stevie took it at face value. Foot value. Maybe girls offer-
ing to rub his feet seemed normal to him.
He was, after all, the Lobster King.

For the rest of the school day, I considered the mystery of

girls and boys and life and everything.
In elementary school, I didn’t give much thought to
girls beyond the fact that they smelled better than boys
and tended to have longer hair.
In middle school, I became obsessed with girls. I
looked at girls and thought about girls all the time. I
discovered boob pics on Instagram. I discovered porn.
I watched clip after clip of girls wearing tiny pleated
schoolgirl skirts that didn’t quite cover their ass cheeks,
and I wondered if they sold those skirts in some spe-
cial sex store somewhere since so many girls wore them.
Not in real life. Zero girls wore them in real life. But on
Pornhub and SpankBang and xHamster, those ass-cheek
skirts were everywhere.
Now that I’m in high school, I understand more
about how things work. I know, for example, that those
skirts are just a costume. I also know that it’s messed up
how so many guys like to look at nearly naked women
pretending to be schoolgirls. Guys like me. Although
don’t get me wrong, I’m equally interested in watch-
ing naked women simply being naked, or naked women
doing naked things.

18
 I look at porn almost every day. I feel guilty, but not
enough to stop.
I look at real girls, too. Every time I see a girl in a
skirt, especially a short skirt, my dick twitches. Okay,
maybe not every single time. But ninety-nine-point-nine
percent of the time, yes, especially if the girl drops some-
thing and has to bend over to pick it up. That doesn’t
mean I want to have sex with all of those bending-over
girls, if it were even an option, which it’s not.
Mom says our culture is overly obsessed with the way
girls look. I get what she’s saying. It would be a lott to be
a girl and to have guys watch you whenever you dropped
something and bent over to pick it up. It would be a lot to
know that those same guys were forming opinions about
what you looked like, what clothes you wore, and what
size your different body parts were.
Unless — do girls like it when guys look at them? Some
do, probably, like Lily and Sabrina. Depending on who’s
doing the looking.
In class, when Gertrude got upset because of the
lady lobsters’ fragrant mists and all that, Stevie threw up
his hands and blamed biology. Is it possible he’s right?
Does it all boil down to differences in our sex genes or
whatever?
That doesn’t absolve guys of responsibility. That’s not
what I’m saying. But take the whole sex drive thing, and
how everyone says boys have higher sex drives than girls. Is

19
that my fault? Is it my fault that girls’ clitorises — clitori? —
don’t twitch when they see guys bending over?
Unless they do. The clitorises.
I could ask Mom, but she’d tell me.
I could ask Dad, but he’s not around. My parents
got divorced when I was in elementary school, and six
months later Dad moved to Greensboro.
Another biological fact is that guys, in general, are
stronger than girls. That’s not a good thing or a bad
thing. It just is. But it’s possible for guys to turn it into
something bad. Because if one human — a male — can
overpower another human — a female — and do whatever
he wants to her . . .
You see where I’m going?
That’s wrong. It’s more than wrong. But isn’t it unfair
to blame alll males for the behavior of some
me males?
When topics like mansplaining and manspreading
come up in class, it feels like all the girls in the room turn
and accuse me with flat eyes. I mean, sheesh.
I think about sex when I want to think about sex.
I think about sex when I don’t want to think about sex.
I imagine a girl with her legs spread, and I get excited.
I kind of doubt that happens when girls imagine guys
with their legs spread. I kind of doubt girls imagine guys
with their legs spread, period.
Mom says it all comes down to respect.
“God wants you to appreciate the female form,” she

20
says, “just as God wants females to appreciate the male
form. Or the female form, if they’re attracted to women,
and vice versa for males who are attracted to men.”
Then, invariably, she’ll say, “And, Paul, I hope you
know that if you, yourself, end up falling in love with a
boy —”
“I won’t,” I always say.
“It’s unlikely, I agree. And I love you just as you are.
But if you do —”
At which point I say, yes, I’m aware that she’s all kinds
of supportive and would be fine having a gay son, but that
I’m not that son, and that as my preschool teacher taught
me, you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.
Then Mom will turn brisk and remind me that por-
nography isn’t an accurate representation of anything,
certainly not sex. That plenty of women like porn, too,
and that there’s nothing wrong with liking porn as
long as you understand why you like it and you don’t
get addicted and you know without a shadow of a doubt
that rape fantasies and submission fantasies are fanta-
sies only.
“Okay, Paul?” she’ll finish. “Do you understand?”
Yeah, sure. What’s not to understand?
At the end of the day, we all need each other. That’s
what I think. Women need men, men need women, and
nobody should be anyone’s sex slave.

21
chapter
three

O
ur house has one main level. That’s where the
kitchen, TV room, and dining room are. Also
on the main level is the master bedroom, which
is above my bedroom, which is in the basement. I have my
own bathroom in the basement, too.
When I got home from school, I went straight to the
basement to drop off my backpack and take care of some
personal business. After flushing the toilet, I washed my
hands and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror.
Clear skin, brown eyes, brown hair. My muscles don’t
impress, but my shoulders are broad. I went through a
chubby stage in elementary school, stress eating my way
through Mom and Dad’s divorce, but I’ve slimmed down
since then. No more chipmunk cheeks.
I think I’m a handsome guy — and I don’t mean that
in a cocky way like, Yeah, I think I’m handsome, so stick
that up your bunghole and scratch it. I mean it in a legit-
imately uncertain way, as in, I think I’m handsome, but
how would I really know?
Mom says I’m handsome.
When I say, “You’re my mom, you have to say that,”
she says, “No. Well, maybe. But, Paul, baby, you are objec-
tively handsome, believe me. Enjoy it. Just remember that
you did nothing to earn it.”
Mom means well, but the truth is that I do work for
it. It’s about attitude. Take the way girls look different on
Instagram than they do in real life. Like, they have a face
they make for selfies, right? Sometimes it’s a pretty face.
Sometimes it’s an ugly face. If the girl is ugly in real life,
but she makes a pretty face, then she looks pretty — on
Insta and in real life. If she’s pretty in real life, but she
acts ugly . . . well, fine. I guess she’d still be pretty, but only
on the outside.
What I’m trying to say is that how you act matters
more than whether or not you’re “objectively” handsome
or pretty. Big truth.
I leaned toward the mirror and made a face. My lips

23
look French, according to Grandmom. She also says
they look “bee-stung.” So I guess my lips were stung by
French bees?
I went to my room, swept a McDonald’s bag and some
old French fries off my unmade bed, and sprawled spread-
eagle on the tangled sheets. Mom’s rule is that I get to
keep my room however I want as long as I keep the door
shut, although supposedly I’ll have to pay a cleaning fee
when and if I ever move out. Like if the carpet is stained
(it is) or if the walls are messed up (they are).
Mom lets my room slide because of divorce guilt, even
though it’s been five years since all that went down. After
the divorce, Mom and I moved into a smaller house and
tightened our belts, as Mom put it. We tried not to use the
AC so much in the summer or the heat in winter. We can-
celed our cable subscription and all our streaming services
except Netflix. We stopped ordering pizza from Big Mike’s,
which is Mom’s favorite pizza place, and started ordering
from Domino’s, which is mine. So now all the pizza goes to
me, and Mom eats yogurt and granola instead.
I rolled onto my side. I growled and flopped to my other
side. I fluffed my pillow for no reason other than some-
times it’s fun to punch something, especially if it makes a
satisfying thwump-thwump sound and can’t punch back.
I wasn’t drowsy.
I wasn’t in the mood to jerk off.
Was I hungry? When was I nott hungry?

24
 I swung myself out of bed, kicking an empty Monster
can out of the way. It was possible that ants were invading
my room. A line of them streamed in from the window
well. But live and let live, right?
Still, I grabbed a half-full cereal bowl and took it
upstairs with me. Ants are gnarly.
I found Mom in the kitchen, reading a book at the table.
“Hey, hey,” I said, depositing my bowl in the sink. I braced
myself on the back of a chair. “Wassup, little Mama?”
She put down her book and smiled. “Not much.
What’s up with you?”
“Your boy’s hongry. Will you make me some cinna-
mon toast?”
“Will you put your cereal bowl in the dishwasher,
instead of leaving it in the sink to rot?”
“Pew, pew!” I said, making finger guns and shooting
them at her. She spread her hands, palms up. I sighed
and trudged back to the sink.
As Mom toasted the bread and melted the butter and
mixed in the right proportions of cinnamon and sugar, I
told her what happened in Ms. Summers’s class. I started
with Stevie and his stupid lobsters and ended with Roby
and how he said that not every guy in the universe would
go for sex with a willing and eager naked girl.
I didn’t phrase it like that.
Mom placed the cinnamon toast in front of me, warm
and bubbly. Yum.

25
 “So?” I said. “Thoughts? Comments?”
“I don’t know, Paul,” she said. “It’s complicated.”
“What is?”
She chewed her thumbnail. “Have I told you about
the time I went to the beach, when I was seven months
pregnant?”
“With Dad?”
“No, with you. I was never pregnant with your dad.”
“Ha ha.”
“I went with Grandmom and Granddad,” she said.
“Your dad never liked the ocean.” She sat down across
from me. “I had a big belly — surprise — and for the first
time in a long time, I didn’t sense men looking at me
when I walked by.”
“Huh,” I said.
“Before, I was always aware of being looked at. Guys
could have held up score cards — Nine! Seven! Seven point
five! — and it wouldn’t have surprised me.”
The thought of Mom being stared at in that way,
judged just because she’d been born a girl, made me
uncomfortable. Stevie’s naked, willing girl flashed into
my mind, only this time the “willing” part sounded worse
than it had in class.
“That sounds creepy,” I said. “Can I have a glass of
orange juice?”
“It wass creepy, and get it yourself. You’re a big boy.”
“Ouch.”

26
 “You’re not a big boy?”
I tilted my head. “Mother.”
She tilted herr head. “Son.”
I got myself a glass of juice. When I returned, she said,
“It was a relief, not being stared at. But at the same time,
I sort of missed it.”
“Weird.” I stuck my finger into my ear, examined what
I dug out, and offered it for her to smell.
She pushed my hand away. “Paul. Ugh. Why are boys
so gross?”
“Hey, you raised me.”
“Not to do that.”
“Oh. My bad.”
She exhaled. “Sounds like Roby — Is that his name?
The boy who said we don’t have to be ruled by biology? — is
a rare find.”
I wanted to ask Mom about me. Was I a rare find?
But I’d left out the part of the story where I didn’t
stand up for Roby. Also the part about Stevie’s chuckle.
So I fished my phone from my pocket, pulled up “Shin-
ing” by bbno$, and hit play. I put my phone in front of my
mouth and pretended it was me doing the singing.
“ Uhh, hello?”” I mouthed. “ Skrrr skrrr skrrr skrrr! ”
“What are you doing?” asked Mom.
I lowered the phone maybe an inch. “What do you
mean? That was me, talking to you!”
“It didn’t sound like you. Who’s the band?”

27
 “You mean the artist? B b no dollar sign.”
She grimaced. She’s not a fan of rap — yet.
“It means ‘baby no money,’ ” I explained.
“Whose baby has no money?”
“Your baby, obviously.” I flashed a smile. “Speaking of,
have any of your customers given you any nice swag for
your boy Paul?”
Before Mom and Dad got divorced, we had a house-
keeper come to our house three times a week. Now Mom
works part-time for a housecleaning service herself. She
says she likes it because she can listen to audiobooks
while scrubbing other people’s toilets.
Occasionally the ladies Mom works for give her stuff,
like if they ordered something and it didn’t fit or if they
wanted the maroon Nespresso machine instead of the
black one. They’re all, “Here, Callie, why don’t you take
this?”
Last month, a lady sent Mom home with a Gucci
T-shirt with a snake on it, because her son wanted the
Gucci shirt with the lion on it. I keep hoping one of
Mom’s ladies will pass along a pair of sweet purple suede
Jordans I’ve had my eyes on. I’d buy them myself, only I
don’t have the funds.
Mom stood up from the table. “Zero swag for my boy
Paul. Alas.”
“Sad day,” I lamented. I stood and cranked my music.
Mom covered her ears. “Too loud, too loud!”

28
 I turned it off. “I’m just playing with you, silly Mama.”
She regarded me with exasperation. But it changed
to, like, love.
“Being a human is hard work, isn’t it?” she said.
“You can say that again.”
“Being a human is —”
“Really, Mom? Really?”
She smiled. “Still, you’re doing a fairly decent job.
Keep it up.”

29
chapter
four

A
t Brevard High School we have blue days and
white days, with different class schedules on
the different days. The day after Lobster Day
was a blue day, which meant I didn’t have WEB with Ms.
Summers, which meant I could have pretended that what
was done was done and there was nothing to be gained by
dwelling on it. I wasn’t comfortable with leaving things
like that. I didn’t want to be the guy who used eye rolls
and chin jerks to say that Stevie Hardman was a TOTAL
TOOL, only to do an about-face and sit with said tool at
lunch and laugh, or at least smile uncomfortably, at his
illuminating commentary on sex slaves in post-whatever
America.
I’m not good at the dialectics of social criticism. I don’t
know what any of those words mean, except for social.
Social, I’m fine with, as in fi-i-i-ne. My great hope is
that one day in the near future, social will be fine with
me — nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Point is, I wanted to make things better. Maybe I just
wanted to like myself again.
During my lunch period, I tracked down Gertrude. I
found her lounging loose-limbed on the stairs outside
the freshman wing, eyes closed and soaking up the sun.
“Gertrude, ’sup?” I said, sitting down beside her.
She startled. Then she scowled. “Is invasion of privacy
one of your things?”
“Huh?”
“We’re the only ones here for miles. You’re sitting
practically on top of me.”
“No, I don’t think so.” I rubbed my nose with the
knuckle of my index finger, surreptitiously dislodging a
booger.
Gertrude seemed at a loss for words.
I propped my elbows on my knees, templed my fin-
gers, and said, “Did you hear about Ben Hartt and the
xannies he supposedly brought on campus?”
“No,” she said guardedly. “Xannies as in Xanax?”

31
 “The kids who were with him said it looked like Tylenol
PM, but who knows? Guess it’s against the rules to bring
any medication to school.”
“A parent can drop off medicine with the nurse, and
the nurse can administer it, as long as there’s a prescrip-
tion,” Gertrude said.
“Ah.”
“Did Ben get busted?”
“Suspended. I don’t know for how long.”
Gertrude shook her head. “Dumbshit.”
“You said it.”
We sat in silence. I bobbed my head to a pretend beat,
just for something to do.
“Did you know that the average male can strangle the
average female in five to fifteen seconds?” Gertrude said.
I reared back. “What?”
“The girl wouldn’t necessarily die that fast, but she’d
lose consciousness. If no one came to save her, and the
guy kept strangling her, well . . .”
“Okay. That’s disturbing.”
Gertrude gazed at me without blinking, like a cat.
“Is there a reason you happen to know that?” I asked.
“I read a lot of crime novels.”
“What if a woman tried to strangle a man?”
“What do you think? The man would throw her across
the room.”
“That’s insane,” I said. I glanced at Gertrude’s neck,

32
which was slender and pale, with a hollow beneath
her throat. “But Gertrude, I would never strangle you. I
wouldn’t strangle anyone. But if I were
e a strangler, and
I saw you, I’d say, ‘No way.’ You’re the most intimidating
girl I’ve ever met.”
Gertrude looked surprised. “I am?”
“I’ve been scared of you since the first day I met you.”
“Ha,” she said. Her lips curved up. “I’m gay, you know.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“As in, I’m into girls.”
“I figured that’s what you meant. You dating anyone?”
“Not at this very moment.”
“All right, well, all in good time.”
“Paul,” she said, “why are you here?”
“As in, why do I exist?”
“Ha ha, no. Why are you here with me? What do you
want?”
“Gertrude, Gertrude, Gertrude. You’re a human. I’m a
human. We’re talking.”
She arched her eyebrows.
“I should have said ‘no’ to Stevie’s question,” I admit-
ted. “Yesterday, in Ms. Summers’s class.”
“About having sex with random naked girls?”
My face flamed.
She smiled. “Paul, are you blushing?”
“Yes. Absolutely. Very much.”
“You didn’t blush yesterday, when Stevie said all that.”

33
 “Oh, I did. Believe me.”
“And then you sat with him at lunch. With Stevie.
“I wasn’t in my right mind.”
“Lame.”
“But I’m in my right mind now, which is why I
apologized.”
“You apologized? How’d I miss that?”
I grabbed fistfuls of my hair and tugged. “Woman, I
am sorry from the bottom of my sorry ass.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Could we leave your sorry ass
out of it?”
“Fair enough. Until further notice, my sorry ass is
closed for business.”
She leaned back on her palms. She waited, almost
placidly.
My words registered, and I groaned. “Ah, man. Will I
always be an idiot? Are all boys idiots, always?”
“Pretty much,” Gertrude said. “But like you said, you’re
a human, I’m a human . . .” She squeezed one eye shut.
“You know, you’re not as vapid as I thought.”
“What does vapid mean?”
She laughed. “Pretty much that.” She winced. “Ah,
boo. Here I was trying to be less bitchy.”
“You’re not bitchy.”
She regarded me.
“You just scowl a lot, so people think you are,” I
explained.

34
 “You know what my mom says? That girls — meaning
me — shouldn’t scowl because it makes them look ugly.
Meaning me.”
“What? You’re not ugly.”
Gertrude looked away. Her mom probably said shit
like that so often that at some point she started believ-
ing it.
“Gertrude?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t let this go to your head, but you’re kinda smok-
ing hot, whether you’re scowling or not. Which I can tell
you since you’ve let me know, very clearly, that you’re not
interested in my sorry ass. Which is closed for business
anyway.”
Her cheeks turned pink. “Am I still scary?”
“Are you kidding? Gertrude, you’re terrifying.”

There was another person I needed to make things right

with. I found him at the end of the day, in the courtyard
adjacent to the pick-up lane.
“Yo, yo, Roby,” I called. I jogged over and joined him.
“Robicon. Robe-a-licious. The Robester.”
Robe-a-licious? The Robester? Shoot me now.
“Paul,” Roby said. “The Paulster. Pocket Paul.” He had
an impressive poker face. “Wassup?”
“I didn’t mean to call you Robe-a-licious. I have prob-
lems with impulse control.”

35
 “So you wanted to call me Robe-a-licious? That was
your impulse, which you failed to control?”
“When you say it like that . . .” I shook my head,
laughing.
He smiled. It was a good smile, easy and open, and
it pained me to know that I’d picked Stevie over him. It
pained me to know that he knew I’d picked Stevie over him.
I cleared my throat. “Listen. The whole stupid lobster
discussion yesterday, that was messed up.”
“You think?” He was standing in front of a planter, a
large brown cobblestone thing designed to look as if it
were made from hundreds of pebbles. He leaned against
it and folded his arms over his chest. “Never mind. Done
and done. But want to know something?”
“Sure.”
“Stevie pretends he’s king of the mountain — king of
the lobsters, my bad — but he doesn’t know shit.”
“How do you figure?”
Roby nodded sagely. “Girls love the short boys. Since I’m
short, they can cuddle me. Or rather, they do cuddle me.”
“When does this cuddling occur?” I asked.
“All the time.” He pursed his lips. “On the sly, obvi-
ously. In the name of public safety.”
“Public safety? Or public decency?”
“There’s nothing decent about cuddle time,” he said.
He gestured at himself with his thumbs. “Not when this
guy’s involved.”

36
 I didn’t know if he was two-thumbing himself seri-
ously, or if he was mocking Stevie, who for sure is a fan of
“this guy” jokes.
“Did you know that Stevie once stuck a sharpener up
his brother’s butt?” Roby said.
“A pencil sharpener?” My asshole clenched.
“What? No, a Sharpie.
“I thought you said a pencil sharpener.”
“No. Stevie stuck a Sharpie up his brother’s butt while
his brother was sleeping.”
“Cap on or cap off?”
“Cap on.”
“Full-fledged insertion”— I treaded carefully —“or . . . ?”
“I think he just wedged it between Tyler’s ass cheeks,”
Roby said. “I mean, I say ‘just,’ but . . .”
“That’s crazy,” I said.
“Yep.” Roby pushed off from the planter and pulled
his phone from his pocket. “Wanna see a picture of my
bunny?”
I hadn’t recovered from the pencil sharpener in the
butt hole. Now I was supposed to switch gears to a bunny?
“You have a bunny?” I asked.
He looked at me like I was nuts. “A bunny? Who do
you take me for?”
“Dude . . .”
Roby jabbed me with his elbow. “Your face. You kill
me. Lilyy has a bunny, not me.”

37
 Lily as in Lilyy Lily? Stevie’s (un-) (I hope) sex slave?
Since when was Roby friends with Lily?
Roby lowered his phone. “I don’t actually have a pic-
ture of it, but it’s cute. Fluffy.”
“So Lily has a picture of her rabbit, and Lily showed
this picture to you?”
“No, Natalia showed it to me. She’s in Ms. Summers’s
class with us?”
I knew who he was talking about. Natalia, who was
super cute and who asked Stevie where the girl lobsters
were while the boy lobsters were busy duking it out.
Forget Lily. Since when was Roby friends with Natalia?
“Lily posted a picture of her bunny on Snapchat, which
Natalia saw, which Natalia showed me,” Roby explained.
“Do Lily and Natalia cuddle Lily’s bunny?” I asked.
“How the hell should I know?” Roby said. “You think
I’ve got a BunnyCam?”
My dick seemed to be getting a little stiff. Frickin’
BunnyCam, promising visions of cuddly Natalia.
Redirect! Redirect!! I told myself. But also, remember
to find Natalia on Snapchat. Lily, too. Why not?
“All right, well, do Lily and Natalia cuddle you? On
the sly, obviously?”
“Lily doesn’t,” Roby said. “She’s out of my league. But
Natalia . . .” He popped an invisible collar. “Let’s just say
she doesn’t yet, but she will.”
“Of course,” I said, although I had the ungenerous

38
thought that Natalia was as much out of Roby’s league as
Lily. Natalia was out of both of our leagues.
I saw Mom’s car turn into the parking lot. Soon she’d
pull up to the building.
“So, we should hang sometime,” I said, trying to
sound casual. “Like, outside of school.”
“Yeah?” Roby said. He grinned. “I mean, yeah. Totally.”

39
chapter
five

M
om and I aren’t poor, but our house is small
and messy. Books are piled up everywhere,
and the pantry is stocked with Pop-Tarts and
Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and half-eaten boxes of stale cereal.
Roby’s house is huge, with an entryway and a wine
cellar in addition to all the normal rooms. The ceilings
are high, and the lighting is airy and bright. Even the air
smells fancy, thanks to a “scent diffuser” with a small fan
that blows out cedar-scented air.
“Do you make your bed every day?” I asked Roby the
first time I went over. “You do, don’t you?”
“You don’t?” Roby said.
 “Ha. Funny boy.”
Both of Roby’s parents worked. Mr. Smalls had a nor-
mal “Hi, honey, I’m back from the office!” job, while Mrs.
Smalls worked from home in order to be there when Roby
got out of school.
Mrs. Smalls was very much a mom-type, with brown
hair and a pear-shaped body. When Roby introduced me
to her, she smiled warmly and gave us a snack of Perrier
and fat salted cashews. The three of us sat together in
the living room, and it was weird. We had to use coast-
ers. The sofa wasn’t the sort you could wipe Cheetos
dust on. I felt overly formal and couldn’t find a comfort-
able way to sit.
Also, we weren’t going to hang out with Roby’s mom
the whole time, were we? Nothing against moms. Just
saying.
I rolled my neck and told myself to get a grip. Grand-
mom and Granddad’s house was as nice as Roby’s. Cashews
were cashews — though these were some crazy amazing
cashews. I couldn’t get over how chubby they were.
On the coffee table sat a leather-bound photo album
with Roby’s name embossed on the front. “Hey, look,” I
said to Roby. “It’s a book all about you.”
Roby did a double take. “Wow. Yeah. I mean, now that
you’ve pointed it out, it seems so obvious, but . . . wow.
I told him with my eyes how clever he wasn’t. He
smirked.

41
 “It’s Roby’s baby book,” Mrs. Smalls said. “Would you
like to see it, Paul?”
It was my turn to smirk. “It would be a pleasure and
an honor.”
Mrs. Smalls made Roby move so that she was between
us and opened the album on her lap. “I don’t know if he’s
mentioned it, but Roby was born two months early.”
“Mom,” Roby groaned.
“Well, honey, it was a scary time,” she told him, all
the while showing me photo after photo of tiny Roby in
the NICU with wires sticking out of him. “He was in the
intensive care unit for over a month.”
“Paul doesn’t care,” Roby said.
“Of course I care,” I chided. “I could look at your baby
pictures all day.”
I regretted the words the moment they came out. Had
I just given Mrs. Smalls the opening she’d been hoping
for? Again, nothing against moms, but I already had one.
Also, Baby Roby was not a cute baby. At all. His legs
were so thin that Roby’s mom could circle them with her
thumb and forefinger, and they splayed open beneath
his miniature diaper like the legs of a frog. He was tiny
and wrinkled, and in every single picture he had his
eyes closed and his head turned to the side. He looked
like a shrunken movie star shielding himself from the
paparazzi.
“He was hooked up to a mechanical ventilator, which

42
helped him breathe because his own lungs weren’t strong
enough to do the job,” Mrs. Smalls said. “And he was
fed through a tube in his belly — see there? — although I
breastfed him as well.”
“Mom,”” Roby said.
“If he’d been born fifty years ago, even twenty-five
years ago, he would have died.” She took Roby’s chin and
wiggled it. “And then we wouldn’t have you with us. We
couldn’t have that now, could we?”
The more of Roby’s baby photos I looked at, the more
uncomfortable I became. Maybe it was because Roby, as
an infant, was completely and utterly defenseless. Weak.
I found myself thinking that Roby shouldn’t reveal his
weakness to me like this, and that his mom should know
better, too.
But where was this “show no weakness” mentality
coming from? Of course Roby as a baby was weak. He was
a baby. What next? Was I going to mentally pit baby Roby
against a big, strong claw-clacking lobster?
Mrs. Smalls closed Roby’s baby album and set it on
the coffee table. “When we were finally allowed to bring
him home, he had to stay hooked up to an oxygen tank.
The doctor called it his astronaut pack.” She paused. “I
think Dr. Benton wanted me to think it was fun, setting
off with a tiny baby and an oxygen tank. An adventure!
But it was terrifying.”
“I bet,” I said.

43
 She patted my hand. “You are a sweet boy, Paul. I can
tell.”
“I try.”
“I still have all of Roby’s baby clothes, if you’d like to
see?”
“And we’re out,” Roby said. He planted his palms on
his thighs and stood up.
“Thanks for the snack, Mrs. Smalls,” I said. “Maybe I
can see Roby’s baby clothes next time?”
“That sounds lovely,” said Mrs. Smalls.
Roby shot me a look of death. I smiled sweetly, like
the sweet boy I am.
I followed him to the basement, which was bigger than
my entire house. Sunlight streamed in from tall windows,
so it didn’t feel subterranean the way lots of basements
do, and unlike my pit of a room, it was spotless. Ants
wouldn’t stand a chance here.
At the far end of the basement was a wet bar, in the
center was a pool table, and mounted on the wall was an
enormous flat-screen TV. Multiple game consoles were
arranged on a coffee table, and behind the coffee table was
a set of gaming chairs. They were made of leather, and they
tilted back with a gentle whirring sound to become reclin-
ers, complete with pop-out footrests. Cup holders were
built into the arms. There were removable pillows for the
headrests. Each chair had a seat warmer as well as a seat
cooler, and there was a dial for adjusting lumbar support.

44
 GTA 5? ” Roby asked. “Or are you more of a Fortnite
man?”
Fortnite,” I said. “No, GTA 5. Either.” I was enrap-
tured with my chair, jabbing buttons and experimenting
with different temperatures. “Roby. These chairs.”
“Yeah, they’re nice.”
“Nice?”” I raised my footrest higher and wiggled my
toes. “I could live in one of these babies.”
“You don’t say.”
“We should room together at college and bring these
to our dorm room. No, these can be
e our college dorm
rooms.”
“Hey, Paul?”
“Yeah?”
He hefted his ass from his seat and farted, and I
bucked and pedaled my legs.
“Dude, that is so wrong.”
Roby cracked up. What he lacks in size, he makes up
for in stench.
“I’ve changed my mind,” I said, gagging. “Not rooming
with you. I’m kicking you off the island, bruh.”
The air cleared. Eventually. We played GTA 5 and
talked about random stuff. I reinstated him as my future
roommate.
The next week, Roby came to my house and we did it
all again, although we set up shop in our unfancy main-
level TV room and subbed out Perrier and cashews for

45
Coke and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. Mom caught me wiping
my fingers on the sofa and exclaimed, “Paul! That is not a
napkin! That is a sofa!”
I jumped. “You weren’t supposed to see that!”
Mom introduced herself to Roby. They both said “nice
to meet you” and stuff like that. Then she returned her
attention to me.
“ ‘You weren’t supposed to see that’?” she said. “You’re
as bad as you were at three, when you’d tell me to look
away so you could steal a cookie. ‘Don’t look, Mom! What-
ever you do, don’t look over here!’ ”
“I wanted to protect you from seeing your son do
something that could make you sad. Then and now.”
“You didn’t want to get caught.”
“Mom, please. I am a sensitive boy.”
Mom gestured at the TV. “And yet you’re perfectly
happy to stab people and drop bombs on them and blow
them up?”
On the screen, I was consumed by lava and died a fiery
death.
“Do you see what you’ve done, Mother?” I lamented.
Roby laughed.
Mom ruffled my hair and left us to it.

46